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Published: September 17th 2008
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Hi everyone.
We are about half way through our stop in Egypt, having just completed a felucca trip down the Nile, and taken in the sights of Luxor.
Fairly exhausted after being deposited in Aswan by a very late sleeper train (at lunchtime), we grabbed an afternoon tour of the local sights, including the main draw card - Philae Temple. This was the first temple on our Egyptian tour which impressed us both with the scope of the columns and the incredibly well preserved nature of the carvings. This entire Temple had been removed from its original location on Philae Island which was flooded with the creation of the Aswan Dam and rebuilt on the higher ground of an adjacent island.
The following day we made contact with a local felucca operator through the local tourism office who gave us a very cheap price for chartering an entire felucca - instead of sharing with at least 6-8 others as is the norm on trips organised through the hotels. This was the best move out as the boat turned out to be a hell of a lot larger than we originally thought it would be and could comfortably slept
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For our money we also got the services of Captain Harmami, who doubled as both head sailor and cook for the 3 night journey. Captain Harmami was getting on a bit in years (he only had one good tooth left), and combined with the fasting involved with Ramadan we were deputized to haul up the keel and second mast/sail when required. The sailing was really great as we got out into the middle of the channel which had a decent breeze going as opposed to the hot still air at the banks. The felucca was the best type of boat for the river as we tacked sedately across the river on our journey downstream with the current. We spent our 3 days aboard being fed with great vegetarian food by Harmami, with multiple stops along the way for swims in fast running water, and to view the temple complexes of Kom Ombo, Gubul Silsila, and Edfu.
These temple stops were really good as we managed to time things so none of the competing tour groups on the large cruise ships were there when we visited. We pretty much got the run of these places so were able
to visualise how things might have been in their hay day.
From Edfu we charted a private cab to take us the 100 km or so up the road to Luxor, but to do this we had to join the police convoy required by tourists - this was not as bad as it sounds as the lead car put on their siren whenever the traffic got heavy speeding up the journey.
We have spent the last few days in Luxor, seeing the last of the Egyptian ruins on our tour. We were a bit cheap and toured Luxor temple from outside the fence as the place is right in the middle of downtown Luxor and you can see most of the place from the side of the road. However, we did splash out on a balloon ride over the West Bank in the early morning which was well worth the money. From the air you get a much better idea of the scale of the buildings and can even see a clear floor plan for a great number of completely ruined complexes.
A visit to the temple of Karnak is always a must for Luxor and we
were blown away by the Hypostyle Hall which provided an almost endless gallery of massive pillars to wander around in.
Our last full day in Luxor was spent on the ground in the West Bank which we did by chartering a local taxi to take us to the sights we wanted to see for the time we wanted to see them without being endlessly lectured by a guide. This worked out really well for us as we took in the two Colossal statues in the fields, the Temple of Medimat Habu, the Temple of Hatshepsut, and finally the Valley of the Kings.
The tombs of the Valley of the Kings were fantastically preserved snapshots of the written language and religious practices of the times, illustrated in great detail with vibrant colours which have survived until now. Unfortunetly to preserve the paint they have banned photography so you will just have to take our word on this.
That's it from us for a bit. We are now heading to the Red Sea to take in some beaches and diving - more next post.
S&S
PS. Please send us an email if you have done anything interesting
recently, i.e. gotten pregnant, changed jobs, won the lottery etc....
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